Re: <nettime> It's the Environment . . . Stupid! [3x]

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Table of Contents:

    Re: <nettime> It's the Environment . . . Stupid!
      David Irving <dirving@box.net.au>

    Re: <nettime> It's the Environment . . . Stupid!
      Newmedia@aol.com

    Re: <nettime> It's the Environment . . . Stupid!
      David Irving <dirving@box.net.au>



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Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 21:50:27 +1030
From: David Irving <dirving@box.net.au>
Subject: Re: <nettime> It's the Environment . . . Stupid!


I think you may have missed the point a bit. I don't believe that TV cools 
things down automatically - I still remember the rage I felt watching film 
of a burning child running down a dirt road in Vietnam nearly 40 years 
ago. The televisual nature of the last Great Military Adventure is what 
got so many of us worked up enough to protest against it.

It's unlikely to happen this time around, because the right have got much 
better at Perception Management (TM).






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Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 06:56:25 EST
From: Newmedia@aol.com
Subject: Re: <nettime> It's the Environment . . . Stupid!

PM(TM):

> I think you may have missed the point a bit.

Perhaps.  But since I was there at the time, I sorta doubt it.

> I don't believe that TV cools things down automatically - I still
> remember the rage I felt watching film of a burning child running
> down a dirt road in Vietnam nearly 40 years ago.

Very few people who were active "protesters" in the 1960's watched 
television much.  And, they certainly didn't need "televisuals" to get 
themselves mobilized.  While it is true that many protests were partially 
staged for television cameras, the general reaction of the times was that 
"the revolution will not be televised."

The leadership of the 60's anti-war movement were, by-and-large, 
"communists."  Some of them were old enough to have grown up under the 
influence of radio and many of the rest were "red-diaper" babies who 
learned their basic beliefs from parents who were immersed in the radio 
environment.  At least that's the people I used to hang out with. 
Stalinists, Maoists and, oh yeah, let's not forget the Trots!

As many have subsequently written -- often with a great sense of Paradise 
Lost -- the antiwar movement was substantially undermined by the 
"counter-culture."  The character of the 60's (for most white kids) was 
one of Challenge Authority, which I am claiming is the primary "effect" of 
television as a dominant mass-medium.  Seedy Pot had much more mass-appeal 
Pol Pot.

People didn't join disciplined political movements -- with organizational 
hierarchies and detailed programs and parliamentary/military strategies -- 
they joined "cults" and they drank the Kool-Aid.  Hey. maybe I'm making it 
all up but I actually remember the 60's.

Hold onto your rage.  It will come in handy now that television is being 
replaced by the Internet and you can finally get up off your couch and do 
something about your beliefs!

March ON,

Mark Stahlman
New York City



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Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 21:48:40 +1030
From: David Irving <dirving@box.net.au>
Subject: Re: <nettime> It's the Environment . . . Stupid!

I was there, too, and I remember most of it.

I was never entirely comfortable with McLuhan's analysis of things being
either appolonian or dionysian, I think most things contain elements of
what is apparently their opposite.

We used to watch a lot of TV - it was a blast to quickly draw a target
around John Wayne's face and squirt it with a water pistol bfore the
camera angle changed ...




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